2004 - The Judges
Profiles

Michael Wood (chair) is the writer and presenter of many critically acclaimed series on television, including Art of the Western World, Legacy, In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great, Conquistadors and In Search of Shakespeare. He is author of over seventy TV films, which have been shown worldwide, and of several best selling and highly praised books.

Michael was educated at Manchester Grammar School and Oriel College Oxford where he did postgraduate research in Anglo-Saxon history. Since then he has worked as a journalist, broadcaster and filmmaker. His films have centred on history, but have included travel (Great Railway Journeys of the World; River Journeys; The Sacred Way); politics (Saddam’s Killing Fields: an award winning account of the destruction of the Marsh Arabs of South Iraq) and cultural history (the award winning Hitler’s Search for the Holy Grail, 1999: a study of the abuse of history and archaeology under the Nazis).  Michael Wood was elected a fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2001.

He is currently working on a book and a four part TV series for the BBC and PBS,
Great Mysteries to be broadcast 2005.

Aminatta Forna is an author, broadcaster and journalist. Her books include The Devil that Danced on the Water (Harper Collins 2002), shortlisted for the BBC Four Samuel Johnson Prize 2003, and Mother of All Myths (HarperCollins 1998).

Formerly a television reporter, Aminatta has presented and produced numerous television programmes for the BBC including the arts and culture magazine programme The Late Show andthe BBC political flagship On the Record. She has won several awards for her television work, and in 1996 directed and presented a documentary on Africa’s art: ‘Through African Eyes’, a PBS/BBC co-production, which today is shown to students of African art and culture in universities across the USA. Her documentary series ‘Africa Unmasked,’ which examined many of the themes of her recent book, The Devil that Danced on the Water, aired on Channel 4 in November 2002.

Aminatta has hosted radio series including An Essential Guide to the 21st Century (World Service), The Travellers Souk and In Living Colour (BBC Radio 4). She is a contributor to several newspapers including The Independent and the Guardian. In 2003 she was a judge for the Macmillan African Writer’s Prize.

Martha Kearney is political editor of BBC TV’s Newsnight.  As well as her Newsnight appearances, Martha is a regular presenter for the Today Programme (BBC Radio 4), The Talkshow for BBC4 and is one of the regular hosts of Woman’s Hour (BBC Radio 4).

Martha started her journalistic career in radio, and worked as Lobby correspondent for LBC/IRN before joining Channel Four’s A Week in Politics team.  On joining the BBC she worked as a reporter for BBC1’s On the Record before going to Newsnight.

In 1998 Martha was nominated for a BAFTA award for her coverage of the Northern Ireland Peace Process, and was nominated with Jenni Murray for a Sony Award as News and Talk Broadcaster of the Year in 2000.  In 2001 Martha won the Sony Radio Bronze award.

Simon Singh is a science writer and broadcaster based in London. His television work has included producing and directing programmes such as Tomorrow's World, Horizon and Earth Story. His documentary about the world's most notorious mathematical problem was nominated for an Emmy and won a BAFTA. In 1997 he wrote a book on the same subject, entitled Fermat's Last Theorem, which was the first mathematics book to become a No.1 bestseller in Britain and which has been translated into over 25 languages. In 1999 Simon published The Code Book, a history of codes and code breaking, which also became an international best-seller.

Simon presented a 5-part series on the history of cryptography for Channel 4, The Science of Secrecy and has hosted a puzzle series on BBC4, Mind Games. His programmes on Radio 4 include The Serendipity of Science, Five Numbers and Another Five Numbers. He has a strong interest in science education, having taught in schools in South Africa and India and having given lectures in schools and universities throughout the UK. He is currently writing a book on cosmology.

Francis Wheen is an author, journalist and broadcaster. He has written columns for the Independent, the Independent on Sunday, Esquire, the New Statesman, the Observer and the Guardian, and book reviews for the Times Literary Supplement and Literary Review. He is also the deputy editor of Private Eye. He was named Columnist of the Year at the 1997 What the Papers Say awards. His collected essays, Hoo-Hahs and Passing Frenzies, won the George Orwell Prize for Political Writing in 2003.

A frequent broadcaster, he has for many years been one of the regular panellists of Radio 4’s The News Quiz. His books include Tom Driberg: His Life and Indiscretions, Who Was Dr Charlotte Bach? and Lord Gnome’s Literary Companion. His best-selling biography Karl Marx, (Fourth Estate) which was shortlisted for the BBC FOUR Samuel Johnson Prize in 2000, has been translated into more than 20 languages. His latest book is How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World: A Short History of Modern Delusions.